164 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [Lect. VI. 



Horse ; see liim in contrast with that sprawling quad- 

 ruped, the Crocodile ! The gait of the Insectivora is 

 not all that can be wished, although their legs are 

 fairly set under them ; it is only AAdien the whole weight 

 conies to be carried by limbs ending, below, in a cloven 

 or a solid hoof, that the last degree of quadrupedal perfec- 

 tion is obtained. 



Go again to the Tapir, and see his paces — slower or 

 quicker — if you will truly value the forms and qualities 

 of a Stag, an Antelope, or a Horse. That Kome should 

 have been made in a day would have been a mere game 

 of toys, and not a miracle, in comj^arison with the 

 sudden transformation of an Eocene Palseotherian into 

 a modern race-horse. I may be asked. What has all 

 this to do with the Insectivora ? — Very much : the 

 Insectivora have been preserved to us to show what 

 simple creatures the early Eutheria were, and how little 

 they are, now, an improvement upon the Marsupial 

 types. The Tapir, also, in both the old and new world, 

 is a living witness of what general forms our special 

 Mammals must have arisen from. 



An old Naturalist {ScheucJizer) more than a century 

 and a half ao;o found the bones of a lare^e Salamander, 

 and took them for the remains of a Man who had seen 

 Noah's flood ; Jiomo diluvii testis. That occurrence 

 belongs to the recent things of the earth ; the 

 Tapiroids and quasi-Insectivores belong to the truly 

 old things. Our Insectivores, and the Tapir, are the 



